French playing cards (jeu de cartes) are cards that use the French suits of trèfles (clovers or clubs ), carreaux (tiles or diamonds ), cœurs (hearts ), and piques (pikes or spades ).Wikipedia

Tarot cards (also known locally as Tarocks or tarocchi) are an old genre of playing card that is still very popular in France, central and Eastern Europe and Italy. Asia, too, has regional cards such as the. Playing cards arrived in Europe from Mamluk Egypt around 1370 and were already reported in France in 1377. The French suit insignia was derived from German suits around 1480. One of the most distinguishing features of the French cards is the Queen.

• Joker (playing card)

  Playing card found in most modern French-suited card decks, as an addition to the standard four suits . From the second half of the twentieth century, they have also been found in Spanish and Italian suited decks excluding stripped decks.Wikipedia

• Standard 52-card deck

  Most common deck of playing cards used today. It includes thirteen ranks in each of the four French suits: clubs, diamonds , hearts and spades , with reversible 'court' or face cards.Wikipedia

• Playing card suit

  One of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated by the color printed on the card.Wikipedia

• Playing card

  Piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a finish to make handling easier.Wikipedia

• Face card

  Generally used to describe a card that depicts a person as opposed to the pip cards. They are also known as picture cards, or until the early 20th century, coat cards.Wikipedia

• Knight (playing card)

  Playing card with a picture of a man riding a horse on it. Face card and is called caballo in Spanish playing cards and cavallo in Italian playing cards.Wikipedia

• Italian playing cards

  Playing cards (carte da gioco) have been in Italy since the late 14th century. As Latin suited cards, they use swords (spade), cups (coppe), coins (denari), and clubs (bastoni).Wikipedia

• German playing cards

  German playing cards are a style of playing cards used in many parts of Central Europe. Playing cards (Spielkarten) entered German-speaking lands around the late 1370s.Wikipedia

• Hearts (suit)

  One of the four suits in playing cards of both the French deck and the German deck. Slightly different: in a French deck and in a German-suited deck.Wikipedia

• Tarot

  Pack of playing cards, used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play games such as Italian tarocchini, French tarot and Austrian Königrufen, of which many are still played today. In the late 18th century, some tarot packs began to be used as a trend for divination via tarot card reading and cartomancy leading to custom packs developed for such occult purposes.Wikipedia

• Clubs (suit)

  One of the four suits of playing cards in the standard French deck. It corresponds to the suit of Acorns in a German deck.Wikipedia

• Banner (playing card)

  Playing card used in Swiss-suited cards. Pronounced.Wikipedia

• Industrie und Glück

  Pattern of French suited playing cards used to play tarock. Inscription found on the second trump card.Wikipedia

• Spades (suit)

  One of the four suits of playing cards in the standard French deck. Black heart turned upside down with a stalk at its base and symbolises the pike or halberd, two medieval weapons.Wikipedia

• List of traditional card and tile packs

  List of traditional sets of playing cards or gaming tiles such as mahjong tiles or dominoes. A typical traditional pack of playing cards consists of up to 52 regular cards, organized into 4 suits, and optionally some additional cards meant for playing, such as jokers or tarot trumps.Wikipedia

• Unter (playing card)

  Court card in the German and Swiss-suited playing cards, which corresponds to the Jack in French decks. Located in the lower part of the card as opposed to the higher ranking Ober (lit.Wikipedia

• Ober (playing card)

  Court card in the German and Swiss styles of playing cards, which corresponds in the hierarchy to the Queen in French decks. Ober is usually a nobleman or officer.Wikipedia

• Stripped deck

  Set of playing cards from which some cards have been removed. The removed cards are usually the pip cards.Wikipedia

• French tarot

  Trick-taking strategy tarot card game played by three to five players using a traditional 78-card tarot deck. Second most popular card game in France and is also known in French-speaking Canada.Wikipedia

• Cups (suit)

  One of the four card suits used in Latin-suited playing cards alongside Coins, Swords and Batons. These suits are used in Spanish, Italian and some tarot card packs.Wikipedia

• Swords (suit)

  One of the four card suits used in Latin-suited playing cards alongside Coins, Cups and Batons. These suits are used in Spanish, Italian and some tarot card packs.Wikipedia

• Coins (suit)

  One of the four card suits used in Latin-suited playing cards alongside Swords, Cups and Batons. These suits are used in Spanish, Italian and some tarot card packs.Wikipedia

• Tarot of Marseilles

  One of the standard patterns for the design of tarot cards. Pattern from which many subsequent tarot decks derive.Wikipedia

• King (playing card)

  Playing card with a picture of a king on it. Usually the highest-ranking face card.Wikipedia

• Diamonds (suit)

  One of the four suits of playing cards in the standard French deck. Only French suit to not have been adapted from the German deck, taking the place of the suit of Bells.Wikipedia

• List of playing-card nicknames

  This list of playing card nicknames has the common nicknames for the playing cards in a 52-card deck, as used in some common card games, such as poker. List of nicknames used for playing cards used in most card games which use the standard 52-card pack.Wikipedia

• Gaigel

  Card game from the Württemberg region of Germany and is traditionally played with Württemberg suited cards. Swabian variant of Sechsundsechzig and may be played with 2, 3, 4 or 6 players.Wikipedia

• Wendish Schafkopf

  Card game for four players that uses a Schafkopf pack of German-suited cards or a Skat pack of French playing cards. For each partnership of two to score at least 61 card points by taking tricks.Wikipedia

• Bohemian Schneider

  Card game for two people, which is played with a German-suited Skat pack of 32 cards. Simple trick-taking game, it is often played by older children and is recommended for age 8 upwards.Wikipedia

• Bells (suit)

  Bells are a suit in playing cards of the Swiss-suited and German-suited cards. Not adapted by French card makers.Wikipedia

Sentences forFrench playing cards

• The French suits are a derivative of the German suits but are generally considered a separate system on its own.Playing card suit-Wikipedia
• The Joker is unique within the French pack in that it lacks an industry-wide standard appearance.Joker (playing card)-Wikipedia
• The Turnierbild pack was created for official Skat tournaments, using the French suited Berlin pattern but with German colours (green Spades and yellow Diamonds).German playing cards-Wikipedia
• These games use the 54 card French suited Cego or Industrie und Glück decks that strip certain pip cards.Tarot card games-Wikipedia
• Originally played with the Italian-suited Tarot de Marseille, the game is now played with the French-suited Tarot Nouveau.Tarot card games-Wikipedia
• German suited decks tend to have fewer cards than either the French, Spanish, or Italian sets.German playing cards-Wikipedia

• The standard 52-card deck of French playing cards (54 counting jokers) is the most common deck of playing cards used today.Standard 52-card deck-Wikipedia
• It is categorized as a Latin-suited deck and has strong similarities with the Italian-suited deck and less to the French deck.Spanish playing cards-Wikipedia
• German-suited decks are not well known all over these countries including parts of Germany itself as they have been undergoing strong competition from French playing cards since the late 17th-century.German playing cards-Wikipedia
• In French playing cards, the usual rank of a queen is between the king and the jack.Queen (playing card)-Wikipedia
• In Bridge, for which in Germany the French deck is common, it is called by its French name, Cœur.Hearts (suit)-Wikipedia
• The Joker is a playing card found in most modern French-suited card decks, as an addition to the standard four suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades).Joker (playing card)-Wikipedia
• The following gallery shows the hearts of a 52-card deck of French playing cards.Hearts (suit)-Wikipedia
• Kings from French playing cards:King (playing card)-Wikipedia
• In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the ace of spades.Ace-Wikipedia
• : One of the four suits in a French pack or German pack of cards.Glossary of card game terms-Wikipedia
• In French playing cards and tarot decks, the king immediately outranks the queen.King (playing card)-Wikipedia
• Hearts (Cœur, Herz) is one of the four suits in playing cards of both the French deck and the German deck.Hearts (suit)-Wikipedia
• Around 1480, French card makers adapted this sign into clubs in a French deck (known as clovers in France).Acorns (suit)-Wikipedia
• The following gallery shows the spades in a 52-card deck of French playing cards.Spades (suit)-Wikipedia
• The following gallery shows the diamonds from a 52-card deck of French playing cards.Diamonds (suit)-Wikipedia
• Spades or (four-colour suit) is one of the four suits of playing cards in the standard French deck.Spades (suit)-Wikipedia
• The gallery below shows a suit of Clubs from a French suited deck of 52 cards.Clubs (suit)-Wikipedia
• Diamonds or (four-colour deck) is one of the four suits of playing cards in the standard French deck.Diamonds (suit)-Wikipedia
• Many modern decks use the French deck consisting of an ace (Ass), king (König), queen (Dame), jack (Bauer), 10, 9, 8 and 7 in all four suits (clubs, spades , hearts and diamonds ).Skat (card game)-Wikipedia
• The game is traditionally played with a forty-card Spanish-suited deck with suits of coins and cups (round) and swords and clubs (long), but when it spread to Northern Europe French-suited cards with suits of diamonds and hearts (red) and spades and clubs (black) were usually substituted.Ombre-Wikipedia
• Clubs is one of the four suits of playing cards in the standard French deck.Clubs (suit)-Wikipedia
• The Ober, in Austrian also called the Manderl, is a court card in the German and Swiss styles of playing cards, which corresponds in the hierarchy to the Queen in French decks.Ober (playing card)-Wikipedia
• The Unter, also called the Wenzel or Wenz, and (in Swiss) also the Under, is a court card in the German and Swiss-suited playing cards, which corresponds to the Jack in French decks.Unter (playing card)-Wikipedia
• Italian suited cards normally only refer to cards originating from northeastern Italy around the former Republic of Venice as the rest of Italy uses Spanish suits, French suits or German suits.Italian playing cards-Wikipedia

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Card playing was introduced into France at an early date. The game of Tarot was also brought from Italy into France...

Some of the oldest cards still in existence come largely from Lyons, a city in which the craft of cardmaking flourished from an early date and which became an important centre of French card-making.It seems that the provinces bordering on Italy and Germany were the first to produce playing cards.Indeed, an ordinance from Paris, 1377, forbade card games on workdays.Another ordinance from the city of Lille, dated 1382, when Lille belonged to France, forbade various games including dice and “quartes” (an early word for cards).There is also the well-known account of a certain Jacquemin Grigonneur who in 1392 was paid 56 “sols Parisis” for three packs of gilded cards, painted with divers colours and several devices, to be carried to the king for his amusement.No-one knows what sort of cards these were.

Above: Spanish-suited pack by Benoist Laius, c.1712

Above: Marseille tarot by Charles Cheminade

French Playing Cards Wikipedia

Above: the Provence pattern

Above: Lyons pattern, c.1780

Above: Paris pattern

See also: The Dauphiné patternThe Genoese pattern.

Right: fragment of uncut sheet containing red knaves.

Much of the early history of cards in France is to do with standard designs and their spread, coupled with a keen sense of economic advantage.Having invented the ‘French’ suit system (piques, coeurs, carreaux & trefles), which required only black and red, French manufacturers were able to introduce economies of labour which gave their products a competitive advantage.Jean de Dale (active 1485-1515), Jean Personne (1493-1497), Antoine de Logiriera (Toulouse, 1495-1518), Martial Gué (Limoges, c.1538) and Pierre Mareschal.Several examples of cards by Jean Personne survive (see below right) in museums and libraries.

Giant Deck Of Cards

French regional patterns, primarily originating in Paris, Lyons or Rouen, spread across Europe in all directions and many of their descendants survive.

At an early period the French card makers introduced the practice of giving the names of famous heroes from the literature of antiquity or epic narratives of the age of chivalry to the court cards: Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, David, Rachel, Argine, Judith, Pallas, Hector, Lahire, Lancelot and Hogier. In each case a romantic story or legend is associated with the hero depicted on the card (see for example the blog of Jim McNeill).

Right: four cards grabbed off eBay, designed by Jean Personne. The cards carry inscriptions such as 'Paris', 'Melusine', 'Conte de Chalou' and the maker's name, 'Jhan Personne'. These may have been replicas with some clumsy colouring applied, although no suit symbols have been added. Genuine copies of cards by Jean Personne are preserved in the Municipal Library at Dijon and the Cabinet of Engravings at Dresden.

Some early French cards have Latin/Spanish suit symbols, as do some early German cards, and the queens are replaced by cavaliers. They were used for playing games such as Aluette. Spanish-suited cards reached many different places, having spread along trade routes of the time. The only survivors among Spanish-suited cards in France today are Aluette cards (primarily of Brittany) and the French Catalan pattern of the Eastern Pyrenées.

By the fifteenth century French suit symbols had crossed to England. During the sixteenth century Rouen and Lyons became centres for the exportation of French playing cards, and from Rouen cards were imported to the British Isles and to the Netherlands and Germany. From England, of course, they spread to America and have become ubiquitous throughout the world.

French Playing Cards Suits Names

Playing cards very soon attracted the attention of the tax authorities in France. As early as 1613, Louis XIII decreedthat cardmakers should place their name on the knave of clubs. In 1701 a further law was passed in France laying downfixed designs for the playing cards from each of the nine regions, so that stereotyped playing cards from each regionwere produced which could be identified by the authorities. Some of the individual court designs reoccur in severaldifferent regional or even foreign (exported) patterns, sometimes reversed or with a different suit symbol.

Tarot cards had arrived in France from Italy in the first half of the 16th century. There appear to have been three standard tarot types in France: 'Tarot de Marseille', 'Tarot de Besancon' and 'Belgian Tarot' but today most tarot games are played in France with the 'Bourgeois Tarot'.

Antique French Playing Cards

During the seventeenth century a number of attractive non-standard cards were issued, including educational and quartet games, heraldic or armorial cards and Geographical cards. These have been followed more recently by important editions of cartomancy cards, several types of tarot cards and elaborately engraved costume cards.

At the time of the Revolution and the first Empire packs were published, artistically designed by David, Gatteaux and others, which harmonised with the new ideas; but these enjoyed only a brief popularity and the old type soon reappeared. See:Jeu de l'an 2, Veuve Mouton, 1793→

French Playing Cards Ace

Above: Revolutionary figures on the court cards, end of 18th century. Stencil-coloured woodcuts, French suit signs. Images courtesy Dan Dragojevich.See also: French Revolutionary anti-Royalist playing cards, subtitled “Jeu des Philosophes de l’An II”, first published by the printer Gayant in Paris, 1793.

Above: three cards and wrapper from 'Le Petit Cartomancien' manufactured by B.P. Grimaud, Paris. The miniature playing cards in the top corners depict full-length 'Paris' type courts, whilst the rest of the cards contain divinatory interpretations and images of different personalities. See more →

Above: cards from a finely engraved deck by F. d'Alphonse Arnoult (Paris), c.1860. 52 cards. more →.